In a culmination of humanity s millennia long quest for self knowledge, the sciences of the mind are now in a position to offer concrete, empirically validated answers to the most fundamental questions about human nature What does it mean to be a mind How is the mind related to the brain How are minds shaped by their embodiment and environment What are the principles bIn a culmination of humanity s millennia long quest for self knowledge, the sciences of the mind are now in a position to offer concrete, empirically validated answers to the most fundamental questions about human nature What does it mean to be a mind How is the mind related to the brain How are minds shaped by their embodiment and environment What are the principles behind cognitive functions such as perception, memory, language, thought, and consciousness By analyzing the tasks facing any sentient being that is subject to stimulation and a pressure to act, Shimon Edelman identifies computation as the common denominator in the emerging answers to all these questions Any system composed of elements that exchange signals with each other and occasionally with the rest of the world can be said to be engaged in computation A brain composed of neurons is one example of a system that computes, and the computations that the neurons collectively carry out constitute the brain s mind.Edelman presents a computational account of the entire spectrum of cognitive phenomena that constitutes the mind He begins with sentience, and uses examples from visual perception to demonstrate that it must, at its very core, be a type of computation Throughout his account, Edelman acknowledges the human mind s biological origins Along the way, he also demystifies traits such as creativity, language, and individual and collective consciousness, and hints at how naturally evolved minds can transcend some of their limitations by moving to computational substrates other than brains The account that Edelman gives in this book is accessible, yet unified and rigorous, and the big picture he presents is supported by evidence ranging from neurobiology to computer science The book should be read by anyone seeking a comprehensive and current introduction to cognitive psychology.

Shimon Edelman

If one takes the death of Stalin to mark the end of the first, darker half ofthe 20th century, I was born just as its second half was getting under way, in theevil empire that he built and that managed to survive for thirty odd years after theemperor kicked the bucket In 1973, just ahead of the Yom Kippur War, my familyemigrated to Israel, where I graduated from high school I was drafted into thearmy and underwent basic training, then got a B.S in electrical engineering andreturned to the army for five years not counting reserve duty Afterdischarge highest rank attained major, reserve , I went back to school andearned an M.Sc and a Ph.D in computer science Since then, I taught andworked in research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, at MIT, at theUniversity of Sussex at Brighton in the UK, and at Cornell University, where Ihave been a tenured full professor of psychology since 1999 I have also heldvisiting positions at Brown University, at MIT, at Tel Aviv University, and at KoreaUniversity in Seoul.My long standing research and teaching interests focus on understandingthe brain mind a problem that, in my view, encompasses the entirety of thehuman condition It is because of my desire to understand, both scientifically andintuitively, what makes us human that my research projects are so diverse Ihave worked on specific problems in visual perception, in robotics and AI, inmotor control, in language acquisition, in memory, and in consciousness, strivingat all times to integrate extracurricular interests such as my love of nature andof literature with the science that I am engaged in My work has led to over ahundred refereed publications, three edited volumes, and two monographs,including Computing the Mind How the Mind Really Works Oxford UniversityPress, 2008 Of these, the last one, The Happiness of Pursuit Basic Books,2012 is a trade book, which became a Kirkus Reviews starred selection and Must Read in new nonfiction when it came out.

Commentaires:

Chris S

Incredible in scope, attempting to elucidate all of the mind's activities from 'mere' perception to free will and consciousness. Despite being pretty dense, I feel its variety comes with a bit of a lack of clarity, and Edelman himself acknowledges this work as a wide panorama but essentially an incomplete one. That being said, it's a great wide-ranging introduction to anyone looking to understand the computational basis of thought.